To detect and estimate weak targets from the strong ones

a new method based on adaptive iteration is proposed to estimate the DOA.Firstly

the space angle is dispersed and the spatial spectrum function is constructed based on the property of signal subtraction.Secondly

the energy of strong signal is suppressed through adaptive iteration.Finally

the value of spatial spectrum is calculated

and the DOAs of the signals are estimated through the peaks.Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the method can achieve high-resolution DOA estimation without the prior knowledge of angles

even with the low signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and small snapshots.In addition

the proposed method can improve the detection probability and estimation accuracy of weak signal.